In this episode, Sam Nordland reflects on their journey into the worker co-op movement and why conventional workplaces often failed to meet their needs. Sam shares how working in co-operatives offered something different: greater flexibility, mutual support, and the ability to make collective adjustments around disability and access needs that would have been difficult to secure in more traditional workplaces.
Sam shares their experience working on Stirchley Co-op Development, a new building in Birmingham that will host 39 residents and 3 worker cooperatives, and as one of the worker members at workers.coop. We discuss the challenges and opportunities of building co-operative infrastructure, and how projects like Stirchley & workers.coop can create lasting spaces where people can live, work, and organise together.
Sam Nordland was a co-founding member of the Warehouse Cafe Workers Cooperative, a member of Stirchley Development Cooperative and now works for workers.coop the UK based federation of worker cooperatives.
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